


Next Time Will Be Better

by sciencemyfiction



Category: Tsubasa: Reservoir Chronicle
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-23
Updated: 2017-11-23
Packaged: 2019-02-05 22:52:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 713
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12804123
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sciencemyfiction/pseuds/sciencemyfiction
Summary: Fai is the first to wake up in Edonis country and boy howdy he is not okay at all





	Next Time Will Be Better

Dying is a lot easier than he'd thought it would be. For something he's spent a disgustingly high percentage of his life contemplating, in fact, it's disturbingly effortless. There's not much of anything as it happens, just a sensation of snapping in the core of his neck. For an instant he feels his body below the cut go totally limp, heavy and ragdoll. Then he's in limbo.

Then he's awake, sobbing for breath, shaking in a tiny glass cage. His hands come up to his his face while he's blinking rapidly, blinking hard to clear the tears from his vision. Pain tears some, shock tears, even anger. He has no idea how or why this has happened but he needs answers and tries to remain in control, fighting panic. Magic burns on one fingertip despite his best intentions never to use it again. If Fai has to fight his way out of here, he will.

"Sir, please calm down," says a woman's voice, muffled by that glass he's trapped inside. The voice makes sense, so Mokona must be nearby; Fai threatens the silhouette of the woman and demands through grit teeth and a badly rattled voice, 

" _Where are they?"_

Beyond the glass are bright lights and shifting people, worried murmurs. He feels small and helpless and rather like a specimen in a laboratory experiment, and none of that is pleasant. When they open the glass egg, Fai startles back, keeping up his right hand in defense. He keeps that hand up, in fact, until the lights stop shining in his face and he can stop squinting at the mystery woman. Calm is a concept too far removed from reality for now. In his memory, close and haunting, is Seishirou's cold voice.

She says her name is Chitose, and Fai dislikes her immensely because this whole thing, this horrible lie, was her fault. 

Gradually, he finds his feet under himself, and begins wheeling and dealing with her. He saw Seishirou when he "died", so he's got bargaining power. No eyewitness descriptions unless Fai himself is permitted to wait for the others. 

"How do you know they will wake up soon?" Asks Chitose. "How can you be so sure?" 

Fai waits, because even though they're both running out of time, he has to get a promise that there will be no repeat, no other person put through what just happened to him. She doesn't understand the violation of her game's magic, doesn't see why it was wrong to build such a thing. She doesn't even seem apologetic about trapping them all in her game, at best showing surprise that he was not aware of his situation in full till his "death." But Fai pretends he could wait for eons, because he knows Chitose is out of options. She finally accedes, grants his request, let him watch the others and their progress on her monitors. This was paramount, of course-- he needs to know when he next needs to be there, needs to be able to get to the relevant glass pod in advance, to be waiting, to be ready. No one else will wake up alone. That is Fai's condition. 

He barely notices his own hands, how they keep fluttering, birdlike, to his throat. He can't stop remembering what it was like not to be able to move them. But they did do what he asked, so Fai tells Chitose everything he knows. After, he has to watch the rest of the group reacting to his death on screen, has to hear Mokona crying, see the darkness creep across Kurogane's face. Fai thinks he's glad Sakura is asleep. 

Then Syaoran finds his master, and Fai heads back downstairs as much to be in position as to avoid having to hear that voice again, shuddering away the chills down his spine. 

He never expected this, in all the long years of his life, but death has actually put many things into perspective. And for the first time in a long time, Fai is guiltily confident that he doesn't want anybody else to die. 

So he is there when the glass egg opens. He meets Syaoran with a smile. It's ok, Fai tells himself, as he knocks on the glass and waves. Next time will be better. 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I'm sure this is well trod ground but I'm trying to get back into the swing of things


End file.
